The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday to extend the 2012 ban on mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles to cases from before the ban took effect. Conservative justices Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts joined the court's four liberal judges in a 6-3 ruling in favor of retroactively applying the rule, which, in the 2012 decision of Miller v. Alabama, deemed mandatory life sentences for crimes committed under the age of 18 a violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Monday's ruling does not require automatic re-sentencing, but it could give up to 2,300 inmates the possibility of being considered for parole.
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